KeotsuEclipse
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The silvery blade clacked and clattered as it stood unsteady in its wielder’s hands; crimson blood dripped from its apex, washed away from the sword by the rain that fell steadily from the gray heavens. Groans of fatigue and pain could be heard from all corners of the battlefield, which seemed to stretch to all horizons; the blade’s wielder’s own ragged breath seemed thunderous in his ears.
In front of him, though, stood his adversary, nothing but a silhouette that was invisible against the dreary background on which he stood, like a painted figure. Like a shadow, nothing about him seemed tangible or corporeal – in fact, his ethereal blade seemed more solid than he did: a wicked thing, which looked as if it was a portion of some twisted black flame, frozen in time; it curled and rose, licked and retreated, over the entirety of its length. Crimson droplets hung on its edge, the sword too thirsty to let the liquid quench the bloodthirst of the earth; the sword had already tasted the warriors blood several times, and would not be sated until it took the deepest gulp of his lifeblood, or until the wicked blade’s wielder was slain.
The two warriors – a young man wielding the silvery blade, and a far older and more experienced one holding the blade that looked like a sliver of mid-night – had been fighting for only a few minutes, though those minutes seemed to stretch on into infinity.
The midnight blade wielder had more than enough strength and skill to end the fight with a single stroke, even that much the inexperienced young man could read. But, why wasn’t he?
Lifting the silvery blade, the young man charged forward again, bellowing as he did, releasing his emotions as sound; the older man lifted his blade likewise, and charged in.
The rainbow light was dancing at the edges of the young man’s vision, and only grew stronger as he rushed towards his adversary.
A bright light….
-‡‡‡-
The flailing of limbs and a ragged gasp broke the silence of the dark room; the boy took a moment to take in his surroundings, and to collect his lost breath…a dream.
It had all been a dream; but the same one, again. Young as the boy may be, he was not so naïve as to believe that the dream had no significance – as to what that significance was, he could not place.
As the faintest rays of dawn streamed through his open window, he decided that he might as well greet the day with the sun; he was, indeed, already awake. Swinging out of his bed, his feet hit the floor silently; his room was on the second floor and he didn’t wish to wake his mother and father, on the floor below.
The fifteen year-old stretched as he stood, working his muscles and rousing them from their slumber as he walked and checked his calendar on the wall: he was still well into a break from his studies and schooling, and had finished the last of the work he had been assigned nearly two weeks ago.
As he didn’t have the need or want to study – for though not the smartest in his age group, he was among the intellectual elite – he supposed that the day could be spent upon various other pleasantries; perhaps he could take care of a few errands, or practice his regiment, or maybe he would simply be lazy, and let the day slip through his fingers in a peaceful bliss.
He dressed quickly: sturdy, khaki colored pants, and a light blue tunic on top of a white undershirt; he wore tweed sandals as well – sturdy clothing that could withstand strain, but also lightweight enough to wear in the summer. Cool as the morning may be, he knew the temperature would rise with the sun. He quickly took care of the rest of his morning rituals, brushing his teeth, washing his face, as the blue-eyed boy brushed his dark-brown hair out of his face, heading down the stairs as he finished.
He fixed a simple breakfast of bread and jam as he wrote a note for his parents, detailing that he had left early, as he walked into the main room and retrieved a katana – his – off of the hearth; he swung the baldric the blade was on over his shoulder, attaching the blade to his back.
Anywhere else in the world, such a young boy walking around with such a weapon would seem fanatical, but not in this town, nor this country.
Universal conscription was just a way of life in Eve: the country was bordered by an ocean to the northeast, and the east, and a mountain range framed the southwestern border. Because of this, when surrounding countries went to war, rather than dare the ocean or tire their armies by marching through mountains, they detoured through Eve, which led to the need of the inhabitants being able to defend themselves, from either side. Such had it been, and such, suspected, the boy, it always would be.
Military life was not so bad – it taught valuable skills, both in warfare and practicality, and an active lifestyle fit the culture of Eve just fine. He enjoyed the military lifestyle and if he found he no longer wished to be a part of it, he could resign when he turned eighteen, and his conscription ended.
He cast his eyes out over his hometown, Windspeak. While not as large as some cities, like Avalon, the capital, Windspeak was a port city, sitting right on the cusp of the ocean – and being about as South as physically possible and still maintaining to be within Eve and be an oceanic city, and thus was definitely of a respectable size. To the west, rolling hills dotted with windmills could be seen; the farmlands where the cattle was raised.
There was a pleasant sleepiness about the land, he noticed, in the early morning light: most creatures of the day were either asleep or just waking from their slumber, while the nocturnal denizens where returning to their homes, to begin sleeping themselves. Dew covered the grass, having condensed overnight, and caused the occasional rainbow-colored ribbon across the fields in the distance, as the light would catch just right with the boy’s eyes.
A few street vendors were out already, tending to their stalls for the day to come, and they greeted him with a smile; it was quiet this morning, but come midday, it would be bustling.
With that, the boy decided to volunteer for a guard drill on the outskirts of the town – today, the quiet was peaceful and pleasing, and he had no real desire to be in the midst of all the hustle-and-bustle of the city during the noon hours.
As he made his way to the outskirts of the town, he passed a few farmers, heading out to pasture in order to tend their cattle; a voice cut through the silence – loud enough in the morning silence that it made the boy flinch.
“Hey, Keotsu!” yelled a young man, as he jogged down the street with two bags of grain over each shoulder. He looked familiar, but Keotsu could not quite place a name to the face. He suspected that the man knew Keotsu better than Keotsu knew him, which was to be expected; the man was a merchant, that much Keotsu knew, and it was a good selling tactic if you knew your customer’s name.
“Oh, hey. Heading out to the fields?” Keotsu asked, silently annoyed with himself for asking such a stupid question. Of course the man was going to the fields.
‘Yeah, Pop’s sick today, so I’m covering the slack. What gets you up so early in the morning? Figured a school-kid like you would be sleeping the day away. Django seems to have no trouble with that.”
Keotsu smiled at the mention of one of his best friends; he would be lucky if he saw Django before sundown; while Keotsu had an amazing capacity for sleep, and would be the first to admit so, Django was even worse.
“Just woke up early; felt motivated today. I’m heading out to the Gates – I thought I might as well get some practice in, since, well, Django’s probably going to be asleep all day, and Rena’s still away on a trip.”
The man nodded, understanding what was said. The trio usually did everything together, but there were quite capable on their own.
Keotsu and the man walked down to the outskirts of town, making small talk about the lazy passing of the days, and just the general news about the town; when they reached a fork in the road that would lead to the gate that Keotsu was headed for one way, and the pastures another, they said their goodbyes and departed from each other.
The guardhouse was practically deserted, as he had expected. A simple building made of cedar with a wooden roof that had an unmistakable red tint, with various construction materials scattered about; lately, it had been decided, that the building was too old and needed to be brought up to standard, and was being rebuilt a section at a time out of either newer wood to replace the old, or newer materials in general, such as common steel and mortar.
It was odd, but pleasing: the clashing of how old and new; traditional and technological. Keotsu knew that the human civilization as a whole was in the middle of some kind of technological revolution, and he had made it his business to know as much about what was going on as possible.
He leaned against the wooden section of the building and waited – the guardmaster wasn’t here (probably out getting breakfast for himself), and so there really wasn’t much to do.
Keotsu unsheathed his katana, a standard piece of impersonal, mass-produced metal, and began sharpening it with a whetstone. Though a nameless piece of steel, Keotsu was attached to the sword; for one, it had saved his life, when he had been lost in the woods and had accidently stumbled upon a bear, and two, because Keotsu was not awakened to magic.
The thought caused a bitter taste in his mouth.
It didn’t make any logical sense, which is why it was unfair; if there was a reason he could comprehend, then he wouldn’t be…jealous. Envious.
Magic was energy, and energy existed all around; magic could be as much science as anything else. But the ability to mold that energy into specific things…while available to the vast majority of humans, seemed to be absent in a few; genetics didn’t seem to be an influential factor…you simply could, or could not. Keotsu simply hoped that he could use magic, but was late to rising.
It had been several moments before he had realized that he had stopped running the whetstone against the blade, and had been simply staring into his own eyes, reflected back at him from the gray blade.
He stood up and sheathed the blade, and then dusted himself off, pushing all thoughts of magic out of his head – he would not dwell in pity over something he could not change; there was a veritable pantheon of legendary figures who had only their extreme skill to forge their tales. He would join their ranks.
Keotsu looked towards the horizon – the sun had rose a respectable degree and the guardmaster still hadn’t appeared; he sighed, and decided that perhaps he wouldn’t be appearing on guard duty today.
He made his way back to town, glancing at the clock tower as he approached; by the time he made it into the heart of town, most everyone would have raised from their slumber. Perhaps he would be able to find something to occupy his time.
Time had passed and the day had gone by rather uneventfully. He had never seen Django, and there just wasn’t much that he could do around town to occupy himself, so he spent most of the day just wandering. He currently found himself on a cliff several miles out of town, hidden by a forest, watching the sun as it started its downward decent to the horizon. It wasn’t quite evening yet, and so the burnt colors attributed to sunset were nowhere to be seen.
Keotsu “felt” the person long before he heard the rustling of the leaves in the underbrush – you learned to be aware of your surroundings, and Keotsu was so attuned to this alcove that so few knew about, that he could tell whenever anyone wandered by.
A man in his mid-thirties pierced the foliage, shielding his eyes from the sunlight with his left hand. He was dressed in a simple garment: black pants and a sleeveless black shirt. In his free arm he carried a box, presumably food.
“Hey Dad,” Keotsu said, stealing a look back. His father’s hair was a jet black, and pulled back into a low ponytail, but his blue eyes were the same as Keotsu’s.
“Hey. Figured I’d find you out here, when Alex said you weren’t at the guardhouse. Hungry?” Tetsugi sat next to his son, dropping the box and opening it, to reveal a few sandwiches. He took one for himself, before handing one to Keotsu.
“He finally showed up? I waited nearly two hours,” Keotsu replied at the mention of the guardmaster, as he took a sandwich for himself.
“Mhm. He told me he had been late this morning. His wife was sick. Must have been pretty boring today, huh? Django was still asleep when I visited James, and Rena hasn’t returned yet, if memory serves.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t going to wake Django, especially when I would sleep just as late as him most of the time. And I don’t think Rena’s due back for another week or two…Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten all my work done so quickly. I don’t have anything left for my studies, and I don’t have any one to practice with, either,” Keotsu said, as he finished off the last of the sandwich he had taken. He hadn’t particularly noticed, but he was ravenous. It must be later than he had thought, and he had only eaten a light breakfast.
“I could practice with you, if you want,” Tetsugi offered.
Keotsu pondered that suggestion. Keotsu was among the best in his age-group, and several groups above that. While he excelled with the sword, he seemed to have a natural aptitude with weapons that allowed him to beat most people in the village when paired one-on-one.
However, as skilled as Keotsu was, able to beat most adults in the village, Keotsu knew that his skill level failed in comparison to his father’s, something that came about from lots of adventuring in his youth as well as a life-time of military devotion. He would lose their spar, yes, but he would learn more that way.
“Sure. I didn’t bring a shinai, though,” Keotsu said, referring to the bamboo swords used for practice in Kendo – he noticed his father didn’t have any on him either.
“I’ve got it,” said Tetsugi, as he stood. He clasped his hands together and then put his palms outwards, and two translucent pipes made of sky-blue energy formed in the air; they seemed to be made of glass.
It had been so long since he had seen his father used magic that he had forgotten just what kind he did use: it was some type of construct magic, which allowed him to form physical objects out of energy. He wasn’t sure if it was some kind of time manipulation or the manipulation of subatomic particles, but then, neither was Tetsugi himself really sure.
Keotsu grasped one of the pipes, and prepared himself as his father took the other.
“Alright, Keotsu. Show me what you’ve learned.”
_____
A little slow to start, I know, but I'm working on it. Hope you enjoy, nonetheless.
In front of him, though, stood his adversary, nothing but a silhouette that was invisible against the dreary background on which he stood, like a painted figure. Like a shadow, nothing about him seemed tangible or corporeal – in fact, his ethereal blade seemed more solid than he did: a wicked thing, which looked as if it was a portion of some twisted black flame, frozen in time; it curled and rose, licked and retreated, over the entirety of its length. Crimson droplets hung on its edge, the sword too thirsty to let the liquid quench the bloodthirst of the earth; the sword had already tasted the warriors blood several times, and would not be sated until it took the deepest gulp of his lifeblood, or until the wicked blade’s wielder was slain.
The two warriors – a young man wielding the silvery blade, and a far older and more experienced one holding the blade that looked like a sliver of mid-night – had been fighting for only a few minutes, though those minutes seemed to stretch on into infinity.
The midnight blade wielder had more than enough strength and skill to end the fight with a single stroke, even that much the inexperienced young man could read. But, why wasn’t he?
Lifting the silvery blade, the young man charged forward again, bellowing as he did, releasing his emotions as sound; the older man lifted his blade likewise, and charged in.
The rainbow light was dancing at the edges of the young man’s vision, and only grew stronger as he rushed towards his adversary.
A bright light….
-‡‡‡-
The flailing of limbs and a ragged gasp broke the silence of the dark room; the boy took a moment to take in his surroundings, and to collect his lost breath…a dream.
It had all been a dream; but the same one, again. Young as the boy may be, he was not so naïve as to believe that the dream had no significance – as to what that significance was, he could not place.
As the faintest rays of dawn streamed through his open window, he decided that he might as well greet the day with the sun; he was, indeed, already awake. Swinging out of his bed, his feet hit the floor silently; his room was on the second floor and he didn’t wish to wake his mother and father, on the floor below.
The fifteen year-old stretched as he stood, working his muscles and rousing them from their slumber as he walked and checked his calendar on the wall: he was still well into a break from his studies and schooling, and had finished the last of the work he had been assigned nearly two weeks ago.
As he didn’t have the need or want to study – for though not the smartest in his age group, he was among the intellectual elite – he supposed that the day could be spent upon various other pleasantries; perhaps he could take care of a few errands, or practice his regiment, or maybe he would simply be lazy, and let the day slip through his fingers in a peaceful bliss.
He dressed quickly: sturdy, khaki colored pants, and a light blue tunic on top of a white undershirt; he wore tweed sandals as well – sturdy clothing that could withstand strain, but also lightweight enough to wear in the summer. Cool as the morning may be, he knew the temperature would rise with the sun. He quickly took care of the rest of his morning rituals, brushing his teeth, washing his face, as the blue-eyed boy brushed his dark-brown hair out of his face, heading down the stairs as he finished.
He fixed a simple breakfast of bread and jam as he wrote a note for his parents, detailing that he had left early, as he walked into the main room and retrieved a katana – his – off of the hearth; he swung the baldric the blade was on over his shoulder, attaching the blade to his back.
Anywhere else in the world, such a young boy walking around with such a weapon would seem fanatical, but not in this town, nor this country.
Universal conscription was just a way of life in Eve: the country was bordered by an ocean to the northeast, and the east, and a mountain range framed the southwestern border. Because of this, when surrounding countries went to war, rather than dare the ocean or tire their armies by marching through mountains, they detoured through Eve, which led to the need of the inhabitants being able to defend themselves, from either side. Such had it been, and such, suspected, the boy, it always would be.
Military life was not so bad – it taught valuable skills, both in warfare and practicality, and an active lifestyle fit the culture of Eve just fine. He enjoyed the military lifestyle and if he found he no longer wished to be a part of it, he could resign when he turned eighteen, and his conscription ended.
He cast his eyes out over his hometown, Windspeak. While not as large as some cities, like Avalon, the capital, Windspeak was a port city, sitting right on the cusp of the ocean – and being about as South as physically possible and still maintaining to be within Eve and be an oceanic city, and thus was definitely of a respectable size. To the west, rolling hills dotted with windmills could be seen; the farmlands where the cattle was raised.
There was a pleasant sleepiness about the land, he noticed, in the early morning light: most creatures of the day were either asleep or just waking from their slumber, while the nocturnal denizens where returning to their homes, to begin sleeping themselves. Dew covered the grass, having condensed overnight, and caused the occasional rainbow-colored ribbon across the fields in the distance, as the light would catch just right with the boy’s eyes.
A few street vendors were out already, tending to their stalls for the day to come, and they greeted him with a smile; it was quiet this morning, but come midday, it would be bustling.
With that, the boy decided to volunteer for a guard drill on the outskirts of the town – today, the quiet was peaceful and pleasing, and he had no real desire to be in the midst of all the hustle-and-bustle of the city during the noon hours.
As he made his way to the outskirts of the town, he passed a few farmers, heading out to pasture in order to tend their cattle; a voice cut through the silence – loud enough in the morning silence that it made the boy flinch.
“Hey, Keotsu!” yelled a young man, as he jogged down the street with two bags of grain over each shoulder. He looked familiar, but Keotsu could not quite place a name to the face. He suspected that the man knew Keotsu better than Keotsu knew him, which was to be expected; the man was a merchant, that much Keotsu knew, and it was a good selling tactic if you knew your customer’s name.
“Oh, hey. Heading out to the fields?” Keotsu asked, silently annoyed with himself for asking such a stupid question. Of course the man was going to the fields.
‘Yeah, Pop’s sick today, so I’m covering the slack. What gets you up so early in the morning? Figured a school-kid like you would be sleeping the day away. Django seems to have no trouble with that.”
Keotsu smiled at the mention of one of his best friends; he would be lucky if he saw Django before sundown; while Keotsu had an amazing capacity for sleep, and would be the first to admit so, Django was even worse.
“Just woke up early; felt motivated today. I’m heading out to the Gates – I thought I might as well get some practice in, since, well, Django’s probably going to be asleep all day, and Rena’s still away on a trip.”
The man nodded, understanding what was said. The trio usually did everything together, but there were quite capable on their own.
Keotsu and the man walked down to the outskirts of town, making small talk about the lazy passing of the days, and just the general news about the town; when they reached a fork in the road that would lead to the gate that Keotsu was headed for one way, and the pastures another, they said their goodbyes and departed from each other.
The guardhouse was practically deserted, as he had expected. A simple building made of cedar with a wooden roof that had an unmistakable red tint, with various construction materials scattered about; lately, it had been decided, that the building was too old and needed to be brought up to standard, and was being rebuilt a section at a time out of either newer wood to replace the old, or newer materials in general, such as common steel and mortar.
It was odd, but pleasing: the clashing of how old and new; traditional and technological. Keotsu knew that the human civilization as a whole was in the middle of some kind of technological revolution, and he had made it his business to know as much about what was going on as possible.
He leaned against the wooden section of the building and waited – the guardmaster wasn’t here (probably out getting breakfast for himself), and so there really wasn’t much to do.
Keotsu unsheathed his katana, a standard piece of impersonal, mass-produced metal, and began sharpening it with a whetstone. Though a nameless piece of steel, Keotsu was attached to the sword; for one, it had saved his life, when he had been lost in the woods and had accidently stumbled upon a bear, and two, because Keotsu was not awakened to magic.
The thought caused a bitter taste in his mouth.
It didn’t make any logical sense, which is why it was unfair; if there was a reason he could comprehend, then he wouldn’t be…jealous. Envious.
Magic was energy, and energy existed all around; magic could be as much science as anything else. But the ability to mold that energy into specific things…while available to the vast majority of humans, seemed to be absent in a few; genetics didn’t seem to be an influential factor…you simply could, or could not. Keotsu simply hoped that he could use magic, but was late to rising.
It had been several moments before he had realized that he had stopped running the whetstone against the blade, and had been simply staring into his own eyes, reflected back at him from the gray blade.
He stood up and sheathed the blade, and then dusted himself off, pushing all thoughts of magic out of his head – he would not dwell in pity over something he could not change; there was a veritable pantheon of legendary figures who had only their extreme skill to forge their tales. He would join their ranks.
Keotsu looked towards the horizon – the sun had rose a respectable degree and the guardmaster still hadn’t appeared; he sighed, and decided that perhaps he wouldn’t be appearing on guard duty today.
He made his way back to town, glancing at the clock tower as he approached; by the time he made it into the heart of town, most everyone would have raised from their slumber. Perhaps he would be able to find something to occupy his time.
-***-
Time had passed and the day had gone by rather uneventfully. He had never seen Django, and there just wasn’t much that he could do around town to occupy himself, so he spent most of the day just wandering. He currently found himself on a cliff several miles out of town, hidden by a forest, watching the sun as it started its downward decent to the horizon. It wasn’t quite evening yet, and so the burnt colors attributed to sunset were nowhere to be seen.
Keotsu “felt” the person long before he heard the rustling of the leaves in the underbrush – you learned to be aware of your surroundings, and Keotsu was so attuned to this alcove that so few knew about, that he could tell whenever anyone wandered by.
A man in his mid-thirties pierced the foliage, shielding his eyes from the sunlight with his left hand. He was dressed in a simple garment: black pants and a sleeveless black shirt. In his free arm he carried a box, presumably food.
“Hey Dad,” Keotsu said, stealing a look back. His father’s hair was a jet black, and pulled back into a low ponytail, but his blue eyes were the same as Keotsu’s.
“Hey. Figured I’d find you out here, when Alex said you weren’t at the guardhouse. Hungry?” Tetsugi sat next to his son, dropping the box and opening it, to reveal a few sandwiches. He took one for himself, before handing one to Keotsu.
“He finally showed up? I waited nearly two hours,” Keotsu replied at the mention of the guardmaster, as he took a sandwich for himself.
“Mhm. He told me he had been late this morning. His wife was sick. Must have been pretty boring today, huh? Django was still asleep when I visited James, and Rena hasn’t returned yet, if memory serves.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t going to wake Django, especially when I would sleep just as late as him most of the time. And I don’t think Rena’s due back for another week or two…Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten all my work done so quickly. I don’t have anything left for my studies, and I don’t have any one to practice with, either,” Keotsu said, as he finished off the last of the sandwich he had taken. He hadn’t particularly noticed, but he was ravenous. It must be later than he had thought, and he had only eaten a light breakfast.
“I could practice with you, if you want,” Tetsugi offered.
Keotsu pondered that suggestion. Keotsu was among the best in his age-group, and several groups above that. While he excelled with the sword, he seemed to have a natural aptitude with weapons that allowed him to beat most people in the village when paired one-on-one.
However, as skilled as Keotsu was, able to beat most adults in the village, Keotsu knew that his skill level failed in comparison to his father’s, something that came about from lots of adventuring in his youth as well as a life-time of military devotion. He would lose their spar, yes, but he would learn more that way.
“Sure. I didn’t bring a shinai, though,” Keotsu said, referring to the bamboo swords used for practice in Kendo – he noticed his father didn’t have any on him either.
“I’ve got it,” said Tetsugi, as he stood. He clasped his hands together and then put his palms outwards, and two translucent pipes made of sky-blue energy formed in the air; they seemed to be made of glass.
It had been so long since he had seen his father used magic that he had forgotten just what kind he did use: it was some type of construct magic, which allowed him to form physical objects out of energy. He wasn’t sure if it was some kind of time manipulation or the manipulation of subatomic particles, but then, neither was Tetsugi himself really sure.
Keotsu grasped one of the pipes, and prepared himself as his father took the other.
“Alright, Keotsu. Show me what you’ve learned.”
_____
A little slow to start, I know, but I'm working on it. Hope you enjoy, nonetheless.
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